It's The Man of Steel versus...The Man! For Action Comics: Last Son — in which Supes goes all Mother Hen after the Feds discover a new Kryptonian boy on Earth — the folks at DC Comics have recruited Richard Donner, director of 1978's Superman, to join forces with writer/onetime Donner assistant Geoff Johns and artist Adam Kubert. ''We brought [Superman] into what’s going on in the world today,'' says Donner, hinting at the comic's waft of government skepticism. ''We’re all involved in the world today, and issues that permeate our minds maybe poke their little noses up once in a while.''

But that isn't the only saga at play here. For Donner, it's also a chance to confront old ghosts harking back to the time when Superman II producers unceremoniously booted him off the 1980 sequel. ''I was thunderstruck,'' says Donner, before noting, ''I did ban them from the set. By my standards, they cared more about the process of money than the integrity of Superman.'' He'll get the last word when his original vision — cobbled together using his old footage as well as screen tests — is released on DVD Nov. 28 as Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut. In the meantime, he's giving EW an exclusive peek at his first foray back into the Super-dome, the premiere issue of Last Son. — Nisha Gopalan